See the bad things coming in time to prevent bad outcomes.

About Us

We help organizations improve safety by ensuring workers understand how to develop and maintain situational awareness while working in high-stress, high-consequence, time-compressed environments.

We also help companies identify opportunities for improving high-risk decision making outcomes and show them how to implement strategies to help workers improve critical thinking and resilient problem solving skills.

As a result of our work, operations managers, safety managers and supervisors often share with us workers are better equipped to develop and maintain situational awareness and they make better decisions during periods of high vulnerability.

Our Focus

Human Error

Understanding how human error occurs from:​

Slips in judgment -Inadvertently doing something different than what you intended to do.

Lapses in memory –Forgetting to do something or losing your train of thought in the middle of a task.

Flawed decision making –Doing the wrong thing while believing it was the right thing to do.

Human error can happen to anyone at any time, even your most experienced and most well-trained members.

ASSESSMENT

Post-incident Review
This is not an investigation. This is an evaluation. We look at your event using a different lens than investigators. We do not look for fault or to fix blame. We look for explanations and solutions to fix the problem.
The review will provide your team with a report and recommendations for how to reduce human error, how to minimize the impact of situational awareness barriers and how to improve high-risk decision making.

PRESENTATION

When Lives are on the Line: How smart workers use situational
awareness to improve safety

A situational awareness and high-risk decision making training program will help your organization:
1. Identify opportunities to help your workers develop and maintain situational awareness – Improving the ability to see bad things coming in time to avoid bad outcomes.
2. Ensure workers have the knowledge, skills and abilities to conduct rapid situational assessments and know how to make good decisions in high-risk environments.
3. Reduce near-misses and mishaps.
4. Help the organization reduce exposure to litigation and fines that can result when workers make poor decisions.
Interactive workshop, scalable in duration from one hour to a half-day.

PRESENTATION

The results of the research are in! Stressed brains don’t function the same way as non-stressed brains. Actually, this probably doesn’t come as much of a surprise. But what may surprise you is how significant the impact of stress can be in your high-risk decision making. This fast-paced session will review the fascinating process of how the stressed brain functions and how these changes influences thinking and decision making.

Keynote and/or interactive workshop, scalable in duration from thirty minutes to a half-day.

CONSULTING

Our Associates are available to consult with your senior staff, operational managers, front-line supervisors and safety personnel to help solve your safety and leadership related challenges.

Meet Rich Gasaway

Richard B. Gasaway, PhD, CSP is widely considered a trusted authority on human factors, situational awareness and the high-risk decision making processes used in high-stress, high consequence work environments. He served 33 years on the front lines as a firefighter, EMT-Paramedic, company officer, training officer, fire chief and emergency incident commander. His doctoral research included the study of cognitive neuroscience to understand how human factors flaw situational awareness and impact high-risk decision making.

Dr. Gasaway has authored 6 books and his contributions on situational awareness and decision making have been featured and referenced in more than 400 publications. He has consulted on situational awareness and high-risk decision making worldwide and his training programs have been delivered to more than 70,000 students.

Federal government clients include: NASA, the US Department of Homeland Security, the US Department of Defense and every branch of the armed forces including the United States Military Academy and the United States Air Force Academy.

More than 500 public safety agencies have relied on Dr. Gasaway to help improve their emergency scene safety and high-risk decision making, including the New York City Fire Department’s Incident Management Team, the fire officers’ associations for Los Angeles City and Los Angeles County Fire Departments and fire brigades in England, the Netherlands, Belgium, Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong.

Client List

Since 1992, more than 1,300 public and private organizations have relied on our Associates to deliver professional, high-quality, immediately actionable training and consulting. Our high-impact training programs have been delivered to more than 70,000 workers throughout the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Belgium, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand.

Testimonials

Dr. Gasaway recently delivered a seminar on the topic of Mental Management of Emergencies. He was highly professional in the topic and delivered a very insightful, current and thought provoking program which demonstrated his expertise on decision making under stress.
He utilized interactive scenarios that were entertaining and insightful. I found the content to be extremely useful to my role in emergency management. Dr. Gasaway is highly engaging and I got great feedback from all the participants.

Jason McClarenGeneral Manager

I have utilized Dr. Gasaway on numerous occasions. Primarily, I have retained him to provide safety and operational training to employees. The topics of teaching have varied – but all have included segments on safety-related issues. He is extremely knowledgeable on the subject matter of his lectures, and more importantly, he is able to keep the attention of his audience.
I have found that his lectures are enjoyed and that everyone who attends believes that they have learned something valuable. The overall impression is that the time and money was well-spent. For that reason, Dr. Gasaway is one of the few consultants that has been repeatedly asked to return to train our employees.

David Comstock, Jr., EsquireAttorney

Dr. Gasaway is a "Creative Thinker" who has a unique ability to examine very complex issues, distill them to their basic elements, and offer creative and thorough solutions. His tendency to think "outside the box", coupled with his common-sense observations, have often left me wondering "Wow! Why didn't I think of that?"

Jeffrey SiegristRegional Director

Last year our company had recognized that Situational Awareness training was the next progressive step to provide a safety work environment for our employees and we brought Dr. Gasaway in to introduce and train our employees on Situational Awareness. His first session was such a success he was invited back for a second session to develop high-level SA skills for our employees.
After the second session, we immediately heard comments that this session was even better than the first (which I didn’t think was possible). His ability to relate to employees, use real-life experiences and talk with them with respect are just some of the things we feel he brings to the table and it brings credibility to his message of Situational Awareness.

Patrick StoneHealth & Safety Manager

I would like to take this opportunity to express my appreciation to you for another excellent training session here in Knoxville. The course was extremely well received by the attendees who came from all over East Tennessee.
Your extensive knowledge and understanding of the subject matter and the way you related the concepts to your audience was outstanding. We received great feedback from the attendees, and I have already received requests to bring you back to town next year.
As a training manager, I also appreciate how easy it is to work with your company when it comes to scheduling and logistics. It has been a real pleasure working with you over the past few years to bring relevant and interesting training to our East Tennessee safety professionals and I hope we can continue working together in the future.